Soul Town
by CuteLioness
Summary: People are disappearing and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. The Winchester brothers want to set that straight but what will they lose in the process? Occasional language, and torture in later chapters. Please R&R, it's my first fic!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Rated M for occasional language (Dean, you wash your mouth out with soap, boy..!) and probable gore in later chapters. Beware the odd spoiler for the first half of Season 1. Any places and people mentioned are fictionalised. I don't own the boys or the concept, although, like everyone else, I wish I did. Especially Dean...

**A/N:** Apologies for any British spellings, and general lack of American knowledge - only ever set foot in the fair old US of A for a couple of hours, so it's mainly guesswork, hope it's close to the mark. This is my first ever fic, so please read with a considerate eye...!

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Chapter 1 **

She fought vociferously, with every last ounce of breath that would soon become as worthless as her continued existence. But it was impossible to ignore the futility of her plight, and like that turn of the head that is made and instantly regretted when passing a horrific road accident, her attention lingered on it, foundered in her pain and misery, for just a hair too long. Which, in less time than it took for the appalling realisation to fully suffuse her prostrate form, was her undoing.

Her ruined body continued to draw ragged breaths. A reflex, nothing more.

* * *

"Sammy, what time do you call this?" Dean's tousled mop appeared from under the grey blanket, his barely-open eyes meaning his expression bore a freakish – Sam inwardly chuckled at the word – resemblance to that of a newborn pup. He grinned, painting on his favourite naively innocent face, knowing it would rile his brother no end. 

"Cold shower time Dean." His grin, if it were possible, intensified. He was rewarded with the sight of his already irritated sibling becoming vertical too hastily – and clouting his head one hard on the solid oak bedstead as a result. Muffled curses followed. Lots of them. Sam threw him a glance of mock-reproach.

"Little early in the day for that kind of language, don't you think? Sorry, rhetorical question, don't answer." A smirk, picked up subconsciously from Dean's veritable arsenal of facial expressions, stole across his features. Dean, his eyes now playing ball and ungluing at least, grimaced.

"And just why is it cold shower time? Unless you're actually not my baby brother at all, but Angelina in a very effective disguise which any moment you're going to whip off and I'm suddenly going to find myself powerless to move underneath your unflinching gaze."

"Dude! That's just….yuck!"

"Score one for the Deanmeister!" Dean, now fully compos mentis, beamed toothily. Sam raised his eyes to heaven and tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that had fleetingly twinged in his gut at his brother's words, _powerless to move_… That had happened all too frequently to his brother in altogether less flippant situations, and Sam felt uneasy that Dean made such comparisons so unthinkingly. He shrugged off the feeling like removing a familiar old coat, and returned his gaze to meet his brother's, which was giving up a fine example of that smirk that Sam had been modelling only moments before.

"Yeah, whatever Dean. But before you get all smug and start creaming your shorts over there, you might want to consider the fact that your wiener ain't going to be in the best of shape for anything in a few moments, especially Angelina. That's if you're planning on getting washed today. Which I suggest you do." Sam's nose wrinkled as supporting testimony. Last night's hunt had been messy – and sweaty.

"That's the whole point of taking a cold shower, stupid. You don't do it _before_ the event. At least, not unless you really want to prolong… Are you saying I smell?"

"Like a warthog on heat."

* * *

Rapidly vacating the shower room, Dean could've sworn he'd be singing soprano for the rest of his life. They would really have to find a steadier source of income so they could afford better than this, he thought angrily as he towelled feeling back into his granite nipples. 

"Steady on, you'll rub them off. I'm sure Angelina wouldn't approve."

Ignoring his brother's bait, Dean instead chose to get to business. It never was too early to think about busting some evil motherfucker, even if one wasn't yet fully clothed.

"What's next on the agenda then, Sammy?"

Sam sobered visibly and looked grateful for the bone he'd been thrown. He shuffled some of the dailies on the bed next to him and glanced at the laptop that he'd obviously fired up whilst Dean had been undergoing his arctic cleansing.

"Well, I've been looking back over some of the articles and postings we've collected over the past few months. Something caught my eye, I'm not sure if it's anything, but I decided to go back and have another look after I downloaded an interesting blog that day we did some library research for this hunt."

"You mean you weren't entirely focused on the task in hand geek-boy?" Dean wasn't surprised that Sam had filed away other likely titbits of information; Dean regularly did this himself. Only mentally, obviously – no more of this multi-media thing for him than was absolutely necessary. Still, as he gratefully pulled on his clothes, almost tripping over his own legs in his haste to return his body to a temperature above zero, Dean lost no momentum in the verbal torment of his brother. "That'll be why we ended up in several shades of crap last night – and I do mean that both literally and figuratively."

"Oh my God Dean, have you been possessed by the spirit of a malevolent dictionary? Bring back the real Dean, he doesn't know words of more than three syllables. In fact, the only one he can really manage with three syllables is his surname, and that's a struggle."

"Which side of bed did you get out of today, the one right next to the wall?"

"Do you want to hear my findings or not?"

Dean relented, and held his hands up in a _pax_ gesture which signified a truce. For the moment. Sam continued.

"The blog is from a woman who has been writing about her ongoing search for her missing son. At least, state police told her he wasn't missing, that he was alive and well, and when she persisted they showed her the CCTV footage to prove it. But she's been unable to contact him." Dean shrugged.

"There's nothing unusual in that. Sounds to me like the boy just doesn't want to be contacted." _We know someone else like that_, he thought, but knew better than to say.

"Well, yes that's what I thought at first, which is why I filed it, but something that bugged me about it made me go back and take another look. This woman posts on her blog, regular as clockwork, every day at more or less the same time, and each entry is date and time stamped. Three days ago the entries just stopped."

"So? She found him. Or decided he didn't want to be found." Again, that uncomfortable closeness to home. "Either way, nothing supernatural about it." Dean had already written it off and, presumably sensing this, Sam's voice grew impatient.

"Well, maybe… But there's been more than just this one case. A few made it to the newspapers, one or two even national. Parents, relatives, reporting a loved one missing, police finding them, but not helping the relatives regain contact. In some cases even hindering. Letters of complaint have been written to quite a few local papers, from all across the country. But this is the weird part Dean – some of the people who have dropped off the radar recently have been those same relatives who were looking to find someone in the first place. And what convinces me even more that this is one of our gigs? All the lost folk were headed for the same town."

Dean had to admit that this was starting to sound a tad more promising. He wrestled features that were inclined to stall on a grim frown into a more light-hearted grin.

"Well, God help us if it doesn't look like we're gonna be following up another one of your shitty leads bro. How is it that I always seem to unearth the intel on the more entertaining excursions?" Sam pointedly ignored him, a trick he had annoyingly mastered even before he was out of diapers, and fastened his laptop with a snap. _Doesn't he know you're meant to respect your elders? Honestly, the youth of today…_ Dean began an internal monologue of variations on a theme as, with a little more force than was strictly needed, he tossed the various tools of his trade – _some trade_ – into his fraying holdall. Then he made a concerted effort to bring closure to his mental tirade and glanced at the nearest encircled newspaper article.

"Humnoke, Arkansas." He stuffed the papers as noisily and carelessly as he could into the top of his bag and continued. "I reckon that's gotta be at least a day's drive from here. We should get going. I need meat first though." Unconsciously, he struck his best Neanderthal pose.

"Fine. There's a diner a few doors down." Matter of fact, that's pretty much all there was; and _disgruntled_ was written all over Sam's ugly mug. Dean perked up again at the realisation.

"Diddums. No rocket and parmesan shavings for you today, lady-boy. I hope you're intending on brushing those locks of yours before we're seen in public together, _Samantha_."

"Whatever, _Deanna_."

In the midst of the reassuringly jovial banter, Dean was almost successful in quashing the dread that had set up home in his intestines the moment he had processed Sam's new information. A small, out-of-the-way town to which people seem to go and not return – _what if that's where Dad is_.

He was almost able to mask his foreboding in hungry anticipation of wolfing a king burger, extra pickle, heavily salted fries on the side.

Almost, but not quite.

* * *

The drab colourless town floated into being on the horizon like an unwanted mirage. Her foot hesitant on the gas pedal, she let herself drink in the view. It tasted like dirty bath water. Even the highway was void of life, and from here, as she cranked down the window and took low breaths to calm herself, she fancied she could sense a strange marriage of dust and putrefaction on the air. 

She was glad she had pumped the tank full of gas at the last station she'd passed; that had been at least fifteen miles back and she hadn't set eyes on another one since. She got the sudden, slightly hysterical notion that she would be trapped in this place, held captive simply by something as prosaic as a lack of fuel. She shrugged off the feeling with an abrupt, humourless laugh, with which she startled herself, and determinedly brought her emotions under control as she fixed her gaze on the vestiges of civilisation in the distance.

Humnoke, Arkansas. Population: 280. And, for the first time in decades, growing.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, I hope you liked it. I'm really worried that my style will be too English, so please, any hints are really welcome. Not 100 percent sure where the story is going either, but I do know it's gonna involve lots of physical and mental pain along the way...! Hope you stick with me on the journey! 


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Rated M. Any places and people mentioned are fictionalised - I've never been anywhere near Humnoke, it's just a name I plucked off the internet, I'm sure it's a very nice town. I still don't own the boys or the concept, although, like everyone else, I still wish I did.

**A/N:** Hoping for some reviews this chapter, please let me know what you think. I'm really worried no-one's reading.

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**Chapter 2**

"Hey dude, there's the turn off, gonna slow down?" Sam watched the Highway 165 sign blur past and pushed his wheaten hair out of his face as he stifled a sigh.

Dean had been driving like a man possessed since they had hit Arkansas, and they had made world record-breaking time. Sam hoped, somewhat facetiously but nevertheless sincerely, that his brother's body wasn't paying host to an other-worldly presence, and that the reason for his haste was altogether more normal in nature.

"What's biting you Dean? You've been acting like a man on one serious mission ever since we left Jackson. I mean, I know our hunts are important, but anyone would think there was some kind of time limit on this one."

Sam thought he caught a look on Dean's face which betrayed some inner struggle, but it was gone in a matter of moments. His older brother had spent his whole life drawing a veil over the turmoil which lurked in the deepest, uncharted regions of his soul, and in that time had become a master. Sam smiled to himself: his brother, the emotional Black Belt.

"Dean?" he urged. The other Winchester shifted awkwardly against the Impala's leather upholstery, aware of the scrutiny.

"I just think this one's important, OK?" His tone of voice said that this was definitely the beginning, middle and end of this particular conversational thread. Sam decided not to push it this time.

"Well, that's great Dean, I'm glad you're so committed, but you just sent us round the houses by missing the turning. 'More haste less speed' is not a wholly inapplicable idiom in this case, don't you think?"

Dean gave Sam a look like a rottweiler trying to follow a kitten through a cat-flap.

"What?" The look altered slightly as understanding bled into his eyes. "You're one hell of a jerk, you know that?"

"You're the one who's behaving like nine tenths of an asshole."

"I'm just trying to get us there Sam!" Dean's voice was tight and high, almost unrecognisable. Sam reached over and put a calming hand on his brother's tense bicep.

"We're not gonna get there if you take us off the road first." He attempted to inject as much composure into his tone as he could, hoping it would radiate to his sibling. "Look, we've made fantastic time Dean, the Impala's taken a bit of a battering, why don't you go a bit easier on her the last little stretch, hey?" Sam mentally berated himself for his deviousness, but prayed that his mention of the beloved old car would ease Dean out of whatever frenzy he seemed to have been overcome by. To his relief, the shuddering needle on the speedometer began to drop slowly. Dean appeared to collect himself, and Sam fancied his brother was once more packing away his emotions into a little box in his brain. _Why don't you just talk to me Dean?_

"Grab the map, Sammy, would ya? See if you can't get us back onto 195." The pleading was on the very edge of his voice, barely perceptible, but it was there. _Don't ask again,_ it said, so Sam didn't. Instead he did as he was required, and soon was able to find a route back to the highway which wouldn't put them too much out of their way. As soon as they were once more heading in the right direction, Dean relaxed significantly. Sam, reasonably regardless for his own future well-being, risked trying to break through the ice again.

"You want to tell me what this is all about now?" Dean glowered.

"No, Sam, I don't. Cause it's nothing, little brother. Nothing, alright?" He was _so_ not alright though, that Sam wanted to laugh out loud. Sensibly, he chose not to, and instead rolled his eyes as Dean grabbed a Metallica tape, the same one he'd already forced Sam to endure three times today, and shoved it into the deck.

As it began to churn out its relentless beat, Dean violently yanked the volume knob up to full and started to sing. Sam grimaced and shut his eyes in the hope that his ears would follow their example.

_God help me,_ he thought, _that's enough to send any demon to hell. _

_

* * *

_

As a son began a fevered quest for his father, a daughter searched for her mother.

Natasha's feelings about this strange, isolated town hadn't improved with proximity; as she'd driven into Humnoke, all she'd felt was a primeval urge to show the townsfolk nothing more of herself than her retreating behind. The place was creepy, that's the only word she could think of which did it justice. As she drove down the longest of its two main streets, she tried to take in as much as she could about her surroundings.

Not that there was much to take in. The place was as quiet as the grave. She passed a tired-looking convenience store, a tiny bank, too small to sport an ATM, and a post office which looked like it had seen more prosperous days. All the other buildings were residential, and they were like something from a bygone era. Pebble-dashing and whitewash abounded, with virtually every detail to every dwelling the same, even down to the short, buzz-cut patches of grass in front of each property that in better days might have been called lawns. In fact, the dull, grey single-storey houses were monotonously uniform and gave Natasha the impression that, despite there being less than a square kilometre to the town, a newcomer could still get lost here. Well, that had already been proven, hadn't it? She shuddered at the thought, remembering her reason for being here.

Reaching what appeared to be the end of the town, Natasha threw the car into reverse and executed a neat three-point turn, no other traffic in the road to get in her way. She crawled the sedan back the way she had come, and began to look for a likely location to start her investigation. She couldn't very well conduct a house-to-house search though, could she? Natasha decided the most logical course of action was to start at the store, and she parked up alongside. When she had killed the engine, she paused, gazing out of the window which was steadily misting up. Freaky. Nothing moved, not even a tumbleweed. It seemed as if there was no-one here. Not a soul.

* * *

"Man, there's not even a motel in our lousy town!" Dean slammed the laptop shut and took a long, deep gulp of his coffee. Not the best he'd ever had, but it was still welcome. Sam had eventually persuaded him that both of them needed to take a break from the long drive, and from the confines of the Impala. They'd found a little roadside café just beyond Stuttgart and decided to make use of its internet connection to plan ahead. It was a good job too, as it was getting late, and it looked to him like they were going to have to hole up here and make the short journey to Humnoke in the morning.

"What do you reckon bro? Down tools here and wait till tomorrow?" He chuckled. "I never thought I'd end up a commuter." Sam smiled, and Dean thought he could detect relief warming his baby brother's brown eyes.

"I thought you'd want to plough on in there, guns blazing. Glad some of my sense seems to have rubbed off on you." The younger man suddenly looked tired. "I was gearing myself up for protecting your reckless ass. Again." Dean was genuinely stung.

"You protect me? Yeah, like when does that ever happen?"

"God, Dean, all the time recently. You haven't noticed?" He passed a hand a across his face and shook his empty coffee cup. "Ever since you left that message for Dad and he didn't come, you've been just that little bit more…" He searched for the word for a second, but then contented himself with waving the cup around some more.

"Focused? Is that the word you're looking for? You think I think something's happened to him." As he spoke, Dean felt parts inside of him start to curl up like flowers taken out of the light. Sam looked shocked.

"No Dean, I, I didn't say that, it's just…" His voice stalled and Dean thought he heard something in Sam's throat get in the way. He wished he knew what to do about it, but he felt utterly impotent. It was all he could manage to prevent himself from going all-out crazy, let alone help shoulder his little brother's burden. _Does that make me a selfish person? I want to help you, Sammy, really I do, I just don't feel strong enough._

Dean wrestled his disobedient features into a Scooby-Doo grin and grabbed the cup from Sam's blanched fingers.

"Gonna take that off you before crush it to bits." He assumed his best Annette O'Toole voice. "Clark, honey, you don't know your own strength." He was rewarded with a twitching at the corners of Sam's mouth, and, reasonably satisfied, Dean turned to catch the eye of the boy waiting the tables. The kid shuffled over.

"Get us some refills?" He gathered up their cups and made to go. "Wait…"

The boy – _Randy_, his badge proclaimed – did an about face, a mildly suspicious look egged onto his soft, fleshy features. His stance, free hand on amorphous hip, ridged chin slightly raised, suggested reluctance and wariness. A reaction they were getting more and more used to. Dean aimed for a tone which said friendly Joe Public, looking to key up on idle gossip.

"You ever been down the road to, er, what's the name of that place again?" He flashed one of his winning, I-want-to-be-your-best-friend smiles. Sam caught on and settled into the familiar routine.

"Humnoke, remember? We're thinking of paying it a visit." Randy's expression transformed immediately into one of barely concealed alarm. Sam feigned ignorance and continued. "Anything worth seeing?" The kid, who didn't look a day over seventeen and had the pockmarks to prove it, answered a mite too hastily.

"Nothing ever happens there. Don't know why you would want to go there." He looked shifty, like he wanted desperately to be someplace else. Instantly alert, Dean picked up the scent. He scooted along the bench, patted the warmed burgundy plastic just vacated and, as Randy perched his ample behind next to him, spoke conspiratorially.

"Why is that then? Why wouldn't we want to go? It's just a boring old small town, right?" Randy relaxed a little, and his look changed to one of mockery and faint disbelief.

"Exactly, it's boring," he intoned, as if he was speaking to someone very young or very stupid. "The people are boring, the houses are boring. Hell, even the animals are boring." The suspicion returned. "Why do you guys want to know anyway?"

Dean had some concoction about vacations and birth parents and long-lost cousins and Auntie Veras already forming on his lips, when his brother silenced him with a pointed glance. Then, as he spoke, Sam's expression became open and honest, inviting trust, an expression that Dean had never fully mastered and could only hope to mimic.

"Dean, I think we can tell Randy the truth." He sounded utterly sincere, and Dean nodded slowly as if giving him leave to continue, which he did. "Our younger sister has gone missing and she was last seen there." Sam's words elicited an immediate replay of Randy's reaction when they had first mentioned the town. He shot up off the seat and darted a panicked look towards the middle-aged lady behind the counter, whom Dean assumed was his boss. Her attention was elsewhere which seemed to galvanise the boy, for he suddenly looked Sam straight in the eye and spoke in a rushed, urgent monotone.

"They're collecting you then, you mustn't go there, you'll be next." He stumbled over his words. "I thought you were just joking around, I thought you _knew_. Or maybe reporters or something, we've had a few of them. But if that's why you're really here, you better go now, your sister's as good as dead anyway if that's where she is." A fleeting look of regret passed across his face as he realised what he'd said, but he carried on. "I've already said too much, if I get found out…." He tailed off, and his shoulders sagged. Right now he looked, very, very young, and Dean's heart went out to this misfit kid. He exchanged a silent glance with Sam, and took control of the situation back, knowing he was now on firmer territory. Gently, he took the boy's arm and guided him back onto the bench, smiling reassuringly the whole time.

"Randy, I need you to calm down for me now, OK? You see, Sam and me, we need your help." The youthful, pudgy face next to him crumpled in distress, so Dean laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder. The kid squeezed his eyes open and shut several times, before finally replying.

"I'd love to help you, you seem like good people," he said tentatively, and Dean noticed Sam nod in encouragement as Dean himself willed the adolescent on. Then something seemed to snap inside Randy's resolve, and he shook his head, as if to clear it. "But I can't, I just can't. I'm sorry." He pushed himself up from the seat and headed for the counter, coffee cups forgotten, without a backward glance.

Dean was crestfallen; he'd always been able to get kids to open up to him. He noticed the beginnings of a smirk on Sam's face, but then his little brother obviously thought better of it as he realised what a useful source of information they'd just lost. Then something occurred to Dean, and he stood up quickly.

"Come on Sam, I think we're done here, let's go find a motel." He dug around in his pocket and flung a ten dollar bill on the table. "I'm gonna use the bathroom first," he said, his voice raised a little higher than normal, "I'll get you outside." He threw a firm, meaningful look in his brother's direction before heading for the door.

* * *

Sam had cottoned on, thankfully, although it had taken a second. Reluctantly he had left the ten dollars, in its entirety, exactly where Dean had thrown it, before exiting the café. He was leaning on the burnished bonnet of the Impala, crushing little stones into the mud with his toe, when his elder brother followed a few moments later. As he went to unlock the door, Sam caught a self-confident smirk on his face. 

"I give him ten seconds, maybe fifteen." Sam had to admire the certainty, but he himself wasn't quite so sure this wasn't going to be seven or so of their hard-earned bucks unwisely squandered.

"OK, maybe twenty." The smirk was slipping as Dean realised there was only so much pratting around outside the car they could do before they would have to get in and drive away. Sam turned his back on the building and put his hand on the passenger door handle. As he did so, he heard the squeaky crunch of sneakers on gravel, followed by Dean breathing out slightly more heavily than usual.

"So what can you tell us, kid?" Dean couldn't quite mask the slight irritation in his voice from the finely honed ears of his sibling, but Randy was oblivious. He didn't miss a step as he marched right past the Impala on the passenger side, almost so quickly that Sam nearly didn't catch the four words spat under the boy's breath.

He watched him disappear towards the bin huts out back and then got into the car, trying to arrange his limbs as tidily as possible. Dean jumped in beside him.

"Why are we leaving? Doesn't he want us to follow him?" he demanded impatiently. Sam looked thoughtfully at his brother.

"No. I think he's said all he's going to."

"What? What did he say?" Sam sighed, unsure what to make of it.

"'Don't call the police.' He said 'Don't call the police.'"

* * *

**A/N: **That's it for now. _Really _hope you liked it, I'm starting to get a bit nervous that no-one does. It's maybe going a bit slower than I'd hoped, but I've got loads of action up my sleeve, so hang on in there! Thanks for reading, see you next chapter. 


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